fearing lest the "liberty of the parent" should be infringed, and lest the operations of the compulsory bye-laws should be impeded.

One check that was proposed would, for three months after its opening, have kept a new Board school closed to all children who were actually and had been lately attending school; and it was hoped by these means that the "neglected" children might obtain a firm footing before those from neighbouring schools could take their places. This scheme was rejected, but the Board have lately adopted a resolution which provides that the superintendents of visitors in each division be ordered to obtain, previous to the opening of a school, the names and addresses of all the children in the locality who are not attending any efficient school, or receiving proper instruction in some other manner, and places are to be kept for these children for the space of one month. We may hope that this plan will be effective.

It must not be forgotten that the evil arising from this form of migration is usually only temporary, for, as we have shown, no school is built unless there are sufficient children " on paper" to fill it without drawing upon existing schools. And as the requirements are very carefully calculated, as soon as the first shifting is over all the schools are, as a rule, again filled with children.

It is but natural that there should be a certain exodus of children from an old to a new school when the latter is first opened. The old schools were probably overcrowded, and must expect to lose part of their surplus; and the new school is nearer to the homes of many of the children. Then the fine building, fresh teachers, the novelty and cleanliness, strike the imagination and desires of the children; they love change, and think at all events they will try how they like the Board school. While, no doubt, the lower fee-if the fee be lowerand the exemption from contributing towards the cost of the school books, are temptations to the parents. Those of them who have been struggling on from month to month, paying with great difficulty the higher fee, and living in the hope of the Board school being soon opened, would greatly resent any arbitrary prolongation of the time; and not possessing any absolute power of refusal for a specified time, the managers and teachers find it impossible to turn away the children who present themselves for admission.

The Board, however, take the best means of preventing injustice, or undue rivalry being practised towards the neighbouring schools, by handing over the care of their school to a body of managerslargely composed of friends to the voluntary system, and often with the clergyman of the parish as their chairman-who will certainly

not be biassed in favour of the Board system. These managers fix the fee, choose the teachers, examine the registers, and superintend generally the working of the school in minor details.

Unfortunately the tendency of all large public bodies is towards centralisation, and the Board managers have unwillingly seen their power grow less and less. It is in this matter of management, indeed, that the voluntary system possesses their chief advantage, and that which will tend largely to sustain it in the education race. I must not be understood to depreciate for one moment the work or the zeal of the managers of the Board schools. The ratepayers and the Board lie under a deep obligation to the ladies and gentlemen who devote so much time and take so much trouble in the management of the schools, and undoubtedly the Board managers are, as a rule, very intelligent, hardworking, and zealous, but it is not possible for them to feel the highest interest and pride in a school in which they have no actual or ultimate power.

The Board schools, being all on one uniform system, are necessarily worked to a large extent from the central office. The managers can only move in a limited circle, and their decisions are liable at any moment to be revised or checked by the School Management Committee. If a serious dispute arises between the managers and a teacher, they cannot take the law into their own hands and dismiss him ; they can only recommend the Committee to do so, and the accused can appeal against them. Everything of the least importance has to be reported to one or other of the Board Committees, while advice-in other words, commands-is often sent down to the managers from the Board. They have drawn up for their benefit, guidance, and instruction, an elaborate code of regulations, and they are expected strictly to conform to the rules thus enjoined upon them.

Contrast these managers, "cabined, cribbed, confined," with the owners and managers of voluntary schools. Each one of these latter has a genuine individual pride and pocket interest in the success of his school; if it does well the reflected glory illuminates him also— whereas if a Board school is successful, the teachers and the Board divide between them the honour and the gains, and the managers are left in the cold shade of neglect. Then, above all, these voluntary school managers are usually actuated by a strong religious or sectarian zeal the most effective of motives—and one that can influence but slightly the Board school managers. They are, in fact, really and actually responsible for the welfare of their school, and responsibility is dearly coveted and enjoyed by Englishmen; while the teachers

must respect them and defer to them in a way that probably no teacher in a Board school would do to his managers.

centre.

In this matter I fear there is no remedy. It is inevitable, when the power of the purse, and the responsibility for expenditure over a vast network of schools is vested in one central body, that the working and management should also be largely directed from the same All that can be done is to watch with care the privileges of the managers, and endeavour as far as possible to prevent one jot or one tittle of their present power from passing away. For if their authority and responsibility were to be diminished, it would become increasingly difficult to attract intelligent men and women to the work, and the schools would be more and more governed from the central office. The consequence would be a system of management devoid of the humanising influences of personal contact, watchfulness, and encouragement, that stimulate and largely conduce to the moral welfare of the teachers and children.

The chief novelty and experiment introduced by the Education Act of 1870 was the application of compulsion to school attendance. Many and doleful were the predictions of failure-of worse than failure-of evil consequences that would spring from the "slavery' clauses. They were stigmatised as tyrannical clauses, and as gross infringements of liberty. It was said that compulsion applied to education could and would not answer. Fortunately all these jeremiads have been entirely falsified. The compulsory bye-laws have worked smoothly and with wonderfully little friction. No doubt, when first introduced, many of those affected by them kicked against the pricks, and a certain amount of sullen resistance manifested itself. This was but natural, ignorance as much as obstinacy being often the cause of neglect of the new regulations; for the knowledge that it was the bounden duty of all parents to send their children to school for eight or nine years of their lives made but slow progress through the masses. However, even from the very first, few parents complained of hardship or oppression; while, on the other hand, instances of defiance or insolence to the committees were of rare occurrence, and it is very creditable to the body of the parents that the introduction of so novel an experiment, affecting them so closely, should have caused but little murmuring or resistance.

The principle of compulsion has now been in force some years, and has been making its way silently but surely. When the habit of sending the children regularly and punctually to school shall have taken firm root in the minds and customs of the people, it may be possible to make some reduction in the extensive machinery now VOL, CCXLV. NO. 1784.

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employed by the Board in enforcing the bye-laws. This time is not yet, but it should be nearly approaching before many more years have gone by. The excuse often given for neglecting to send a child to school-that there is no school conveniently near, or no room in the school-will soon be obsolete, while other causes of absence may be expected to diminish. Then when all parents come to know that a child born now enters the world with the inevitable destiny before him of school attendance from five years of age to thirteen, they will reconcile their minds to his fate and send him without complaint. At present the worst offenders are chiefly those whose children were born and growing up before anything was really known of the Education Acts. They had therefore been calculating on eking out their own wages by the pittance their children might earn at an early age, and now, finding their hopes blighted, consider they have been defrauded of their rightful gains, and are proportionately obstinate.

Though the bye-laws work smoothly, the results so far attained have not been entirely satisfactory. The percentage of average attendance on the numbers on the rolls-in other words, the regularity of attendance-which largely depends on the bye-laws, is still considerably below the 95 per cent. which it is hoped ultimately to attain, having as yet only reached 81 per cent. in the Board schools. Year by year, however, a gradual though slow improvement is visible, and the percentage has risen from the very low figure of 65'8, at which it stood in 1872, to the present one of 81. But while the regularity of attendance in the Board schools has been progressing, the percentages of attendance in the voluntary schools have not been making the same steady advance. From 78.3 in 1871 the percentage sunk to 75'3 in 1873, and has since risen to only 77.8.

As the bye-laws are worked as much in the interests of the voluntary as of the Board schools, their percentage should be at least equal to that of their rival, and it would probably appear better if their books were kept in a similar way. In the Board schools the name of a child is nominally taken off the register, as far as the percentage of average attendance is concerned, if he has been absent for a fortnight or three weeks, while in many voluntary schools the child is reckoned in the attendance-average weeks after he may have left the school, of course to the detriment of the percentage. It is probable, too, that during the last eight years the continual opening of new Board in close proximity to voluntary schools, by temporarily affecting the attendance in the latter, has lowered the percentage.

Though the attendance of the children is not nearly so regular as

it should be, it compares favourably with that which prevailed under the purely voluntary system, before Board schools and compulsion became factors in the question. We must remember that in 1876 the children at school were really the pick of half a million-there were only some 174,000 in average attendance then-that those who went to school went because they liked to go, or because their parents desired it; and we should naturally expect such children to be regular attendants. While now the children in average attendance amount to over 350,000, and the Board have reached the lowest classes, yet, in spite of the decided tendency to irregular attendance that must have been imported into the schools by the introduction of the least regular and punctual classes, the regularity and punctuality of attendance has on the whole increased, and is increasing slowly but steadily. The regularity of attendance in any particular school depends to a considerable extent also on the character of the teacher. He who is up to his work and has influence over the children will rapidly fill a half-empty school, and will marvellously improve its regularity and punctuality. I believe that if the teachers had greater confidence in their powers of instilling regular habits into the children, and did not depend so much on the exertions of the visitors, they might, with little effort, considerably improve the average attendance.

To enforce the bye-laws the Board employs a staff of 210 visitors and II superintendents, one to each of the divisions; the cost last year amounted to £28,000. Each visitor has, on an average, about 2,500 children under his supervision. By a house-to-house visit he schedules his district and obtains the names of the children; and, as he is provided with duplicates of the attendance register of the schools in his block, he is enabled to discover whether all the children of school age are attending school, and whether they are making the proper number of attendances. If he finds that a child is not attending, or is irregular at school, he sees the parent if he can and cautions him, and if this has no effect he serves a warning notice. If no attention-or not sufficient attention-is paid to the notice, another form, called "Notice B," is served, which requires the recalcitrant parent to appear before one of the numerous "Notice B Committees" which are dotted over London.

In answer to this summons one of the parents usually appears to explain why his child has not been duly attending school, to show cause why the child should be wholly or partially exempted from attendance, or to request remission of fees. The committee-which consists of a member of the Board, the superintendent, and often an "outside" lady or gentleman-give judgment as the case seems to